AGENCY CORRUPT, DEPUTY TESTIFIES

Shawnee County sheriff's Detective Daniel Jaramillo said "insight" was
what he had gained by telling Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents
that Sheriff Dave Meneley told him another deputy had a cocaine
addiction and was stealing the drug from sheriff's cases.

"I've gained a lot of insight from the matter," Jaramillo said. "It's
showed me how corruption can occur in an agency.

"We still have that problem."

Jaramillo, who was named a narcotics investigator in 1985, then
promoted to detective in 1994 because of his drug investigations and
was a hand-picked member of the FBI Violent Crimes Strike Force, a
multiagency task force targeting large-scale drug trafficking, was
reassigned in April 1996 to the uniform division, a non-investigative
post.

That was the consequence of telling an assistant district attorney
about potential drug problems in the sheriff's department, Jaramillo
said.

His remark about corruption came Monday during a full day of testimony
in a hearing to determine whether drug charges against Carlos
Hernandez, who has cited alleged misconduct by sheriff's narcotics
officers in 1995 and a break in the chain of custody of marijuana,
should be dismissed. Hernandez is charged with misdemeanor marijuana
possession and felony failure to pay the Kansas drug tax.

In November 1995, Meneley ordered Jaramillo and Deputy Philip Blume to
return to the sheriff's department and leave the strike force where
they were the lead officers on the "Juarez investigation," a probe
into the shipping of kilograms of cocaine from Mexico and Dallas to
Shawnee County by the Mexican Mafia, Blume said.

"By far, it was the largest operation I had ever been involved with,"
Blume testified, adding that when he and Jaramillo were ordered back
to the sheriff's narcotics unit they were ordered to spend as much
federal Bureau of Justice Administration grant money as possible to
make small drug cases.

He said the order was relayed from Meneley to Jaramillo and Blume by
their supervisor, Capt. Roger Lovelace.

Jaramillo called the deputies' removal from the strike force
investigation a "punitive action" by the sheriff.

But Meneley testified Monday he pulled the two from the FBI force
because he didn't think the sheriff's department was getting its
money's worth from its investment in the strike force.

Blume and Jaramillo testified that at a July 1995 meeting with
Meneley, the sheriff told them Cpl. Timothy P. Oblander was using
crack cocaine bought on the job and that he would open bags of drugs,
remove the drugs and replace them with foreign substances, then reseal
the bags.

Blume testified the sheriff said Oblander tried marijuana and
methamphetamine but primarily used cocaine.

Blume said the sheriff said his opinion was that Sgt. Frank Good,
Oblander's partner, was responsible for getting Oblander to use
cocaine. Meneley also said Oblander was in debt to him for help the
sheriff was giving Oblander, Blume testified.

"At the time, I was incredibly shocked and did not discuss it with
anyone," Blume said.

"Oblander had confessed" the drug problem to Meneley, Jaramillo said
Meneley told them.

When Jaramillo, Blume and Detective Scott Holladay discussed Oblander,
the three were concerned that court cases were being prosecuted with
tampered drug evidence, Jaramillo said.

Jaramillo said Meneley saw no problem with those cases and said they
should be forwarded to the district attorney's office for prosecution.
They apparently were, Jaramillo said.

On Monday, Good denied ever telling Holladay that Oblander was using
drugs, received treatment for drug abuse and that Oblander had opened
drug evidence in a case Good investigated.

"Basically there's a whole lot wrong here. It's my opinion that no
drugs were ever missing from the evidence locker. It's a big
whatever-you-want-to-call-it for Holladay to make him look better,"
Good said. Good said Holladay "mishandled" the drug evidence.

Good also denied telling Detective Jack Metz that Oblander had a drug
habit. Good said he was talking about a confidential informant who had
a drug habit, and Metz thought Good was talking about Oblander.

However, Metz testified his friendship with Good and Oblander "fell
away" in 1995 after Good told him Oblander was using crack cocaine
after first trying some cocaine that was part of a canine training
aid.

Metz said Good told him that Meneley was "going to take care of it,
that he's going to cover it up."

Metz said a trustworthy confidential informant, who was a relative of
his, told him he had seen Oblander using crack. On one occasion, the
informant said he had gone to the sheriff's office where he found
Oblander lying with his head on a desk, and "the air was filled with
the aroma of burning crack cocaine," Metz testified.

"I didn't feel that what they were doing was right," Metz
said.

Hernandez is challenging the case against him in the wake of a Kansas
Bureau of Investigation probe into the 1994 disappearance of about
0.75 ounce of cocaine from a sheriff's department evidence locker. The
KBI's report of its investigation was made public in December on order
by a district judge.